Agricultural and heavy-equipment maker John Deere continued deploying private networks across its manufacturing ecosystem this year, part of an Industry 4.0 strategy which puts the infrastructure approach at the heart of every new facility.

Jason Wallin, principal architect of foundational IT at John Deere, told Mobile World Live the company publicly stated private networks would be a key part in the design of new facilities.

The company wants to move from a split of 70 per cent wired Ethernet and 30 per cent Wi-Fi, to 80 per cent mobile, 10 per cent Wi-Fi and 10 per cent Ethernet over the coming years.

“Each new facility that we’ve rolled out has really proved out that, yes, we’re on target to be able to hit that,” Wallin said. “We’ve actually had some facilities be just a bit higher on the percentage of [mobile] connectivity inside there, but it makes us feel very confident with that 80-10-10 model at scale.”

Wallin estimates John Deere opened eight buildings with private networks this year, adding to 18 private networks it operated at the beginning of October 2023.

It doubled up on standalone 5G deployments to two at its US facilities, but Wallin explained “the vast majority of them continue to be LTE-based”.

“Some of those are obviously on the same campus, but in doing that, we’ve certainly seen lots of goodness come with them as far as the advantage to John Deere.”  

Wallin said all the equipment John Deere has purchased is compatible with 4G and 5G, enabling it to scale the latter as needed.

He noted more 5G-enabled devices are becoming available, which in turn drives prices down.

“That’s really going to drive when we make that conversion over from LTE networks to 5G networks.”

John Deere began its Industry 4.0 effort in 2019 when it bid for CBRS priority access licences in areas of the US where most of its manufacturing footprint sits.

It initially worked with Nokia to understand how to use and deploy the spectrum, but is now taking over more of the technology stack.

The company is also teaming with start-up private network vendors.

A survey of 461 manufacturing decision-makers from the US, Malaysia and Germany by ABI Research found manufacturers are increasingly integrating private networks into their operations, with 44 per cent in the early stages of 4G rollouts.

ABI Research found 45 per cent are devising implementation strategies for private 5G and 30 per cent are evaluating suppliers.

Neutral hosts
In addition to using private networks across its manufacturing processes, John Deere is exploring providing better connectivity inside of its large buildings.

Wallin said it is looking to expand its private mobile investment across neutral hosts with multi-operator core networks (MOCN) to improve in-building connectivity for employees.

“We want to make sure if they have an update that comes in from home or somebody’s sick at school, that they’ve got good connectivity to be able to work through that as well.”

“Neutral hosts and MOCN become more and more of an option there.”